Matthew Wood

Professor of Neuroscience and Deputy Head of the Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford

Matthew Wood is Professor of Neuroscience and Deputy Head of the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford. He directs the Laboratory of RNA biology and Neuromuscular Disease investigating development of RNA-based medicines for neuromuscular disease focusing on the development of advanced generation antisense oligonucleotides for Duchenne muscular dystrophy and related neuromuscular conditions. He has pioneered the development of novel delivery systems including peptide and exosome-based technologies for the targeted delivery of macromolecular biologics, including oligonucleotides, to tissues including the brain. He is the founder of the biotech spin-outs Evox Therapeutics (developing therapeutic exosome technology) and PepGen (developing peptide based drug delivery technology), is an advisor to numerous research funding agencies including the UK Medical Research Council and is a director of the University of Oxford’s technology transfer organization, Oxford University Innovation.

Programme sessions

09:30 – 10:45

Pitching for Success

Pitching for Success will be to an audience that includes investors, support organisations and individuals.

The Investor Panel will include professional funding organisations; including speakers from crowd investment (Peer2Peer, equity, loans), venture capital and public sector funding. Each panelist will give an overview of what they look for when investing or funding a company followed by Q&A with the audience.

After all the presentations are completed, the excitement continues as the audience votes to select a winning company. The two session winners will be announced at 15:45 and will be able to pitch again to the audience, who will decide the overall winner on the day for the £1,000 cash prize.

As well as the live pitches and investor panels, the companies from both sessions will be available in the John Henry Brookes Lecture Theatre Foyer for networking.